Brigands

Brigands
From 1825 to 1853, brigands who lived in Udin boršt and wandered around from the late 18th to mid 19th centuries, and especially from 1825 to 1853, gave Udin boršt a special character. A well-known meeting place of brigands was at "Kriva jelka" (Eng., the Curved fir tree), where finfranje (a brigands' feast) was held, together with marriages.

Who were the brigands?
The brigands were the members of well-organised groups of robbers, beggars and vagabonds, who were operating in Carniola mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. At that time, there was a period of continuous wars, natural disasters and social upheaval, all this being linked with the great distress of ordinary people, in the entire Europe. This was one of the main reasons that many have resorted to earning a living by begging and stealing, eventually also by extortion and robbery.

In the majority of Carniola, gangs of brigands were formed who then bullied the immediate and wider environments from their hiding places. Their core was formed with former and especially runaway soldiers, because at that time, the service in the army lasted up to 14 years. Due to its wide forests and Karst caves, one of their centres was in Udin boršt.

The brigands had a wide network of informers in the markets and villages, and they were inquiring what the people spoke of the brigands, where potential danger was and where they could take something from. People have wondered fearfully of such "omniscience" and were convinced that the brigands were wizards who know how to make themselves invisible.

The brigands' mystery was further enriched by their specific and difficult-to-understand language, which was a mixture of various languages and dialects.

In their camps, they conducted brigands' marriages with the help of their own "priests" or the Pope. Namely, he married them for a quarter of a year, and the ceremony was confirmed by jumping over a ditch. There were many women among the brigands and they had an equal status.

The brigands were a severe nuisance to the authorities; this is why they were called "the Carniolan gypsies" and "the provincial plague". After 1850, with the introduction of the gendarmerie in the Austrian provinces and the regulation of the political situation, the brigands were suppressed.

What do we really know about the brigands and their ways today?
A brigand is a rugged, somewhat obstinate man who does not obey the authority, but is in fact a good guy, willing to help simple people. This is what comes to our mind when we hear about a brigand today.

However, how were they seen at their time? In 1840, when there were still many of them and extremely active, they were named in an article in the Illyrisches Blatt newspaper as Die krainische Zigeuner – the Carniolan gypsies. According to the author of the article, the brigands roamed the wealthiest districts of Upper Carniola like a gang of beggars known as Rakovnazhi, Shteklazharji, Plajsharji or Masharji, all these being Carniolan names. Of course, they were not true gypsies, but Upper Carniolans, who spoke the same dialect as the locals; also, they were distinguished from the gypsies by their physiognomy and their clothes. They all were namely very well dressed, according to the Upper Carniolan costume, so one could have easily mistaken them for wealthy farmers if men had not worn bundles and sticks, and women pots in their hands and children on their backs.

There were around 70 to 80 proper brigands, and they were born beggars without homeland. They were not registered anywhere nor were a part of any parish and concluded wild marriages among each other; however, they had their children baptised. In the summer, they lived in dense pined forests during the day, and moved to the barns and fern-lands at night, without asking the farmers for permission, of course. In winter, they found shelter at poor cottagers', lodgers' houses and in isolated taverns. Due to the fact that the county gentlemen disliked and pursued them, they usually did not stay in one place for long. Instead, they wandered around in different groups, usually with families around districts Brdo by Podpeč, Krumperk, Križ (Kamnik), Mekinje, Velesovo, Kranj and partly around districts Tržič, Radovljica, Loka and Ljubljana with its surroundings.

They often visited the markets. At that time, they were particularly nicely dressed and without any mendicant symbols. In this way, unrecognisable as they were, it was easier to perform their modus adquirendi – theft. Moreover, they were present at every parish festival and rustic wedding where they had to be served with a bucket of wine.
The men were rarely begging, this was the work for women and children – however, they did not begged, bud demanded. Preferably, porridge, bacon, lard and meat. And if people did not obey immediately, they began cursing terribly and threatening with fire. However, the real brigands would not want to be named robbers nor thieves, but they prided themselves with being noble beggars. They repented very rarely. And if that happened, it usually did not last long, because they preferred their old lifestyle they were accustomed to. If someone reproached them and tried to persuade them to abandon their lifestyle and earn their living honourably – with work, their answer was usually the following:

My father wasn't working, neither was my mother, so why should I?
The farmer is ploughing and trying,
I am dancing and resting,
oat bread is lumpy,
so I rather get the white one.

The author of the article in the Illyrisches Blatt newspaper notes that the prosecution and punishment of these people would have been in vain, until their material and moral needs were taken care of. And until their wandering around was not prevented, the land would not be resolved of this trouble. They had numerous children. And because they lived like true people of the nature, they had constantly reinforced themselves and very rarely gotten sick. But when they died, they always asked for a Christian burial.
Among them, there were also spurious Rakovnazhen, people who have joined them out of despair. These were much worse and much more dangerous than the real, born brigands.

As the last of the famous and active brigands, we can mention Dimež. Franc Ziherl – Dimež was born on December 2, 1827, in Gorenja Sava at Kranj as the illegitimate son of his mother Jera Ziherl, Dimca. Mother Jera was considered by the authorities as the woman who had the closest connection with the brigands and according to the district governor of Carniola, the father of Dimež was Travnov Janez, who belonged to one of the oldest Carniolan brigand families, and Jera was his mistress. Franc joined the brigands when he was called to the army. In 1852, he was arrested and Dimež was then sentenced to eighteen years in prison. In 1857, he was sent to serve his sentence in Osijek, from where he had escaped after two years. He returned to his home village and brought the brigands in the country back to life.

Arson, theft and robbery were their daily routine and this slowly grew into an alarming state. Despite the promised reward for his arrest and all the efforts of district authorities and gendarmes, they were unable to apprehend Dimež. The farmers were unwilling to cooperate with the authorities in this matter, because they were afraid of retaliation if Dimež escaped again. The government and the people were relieved only when Dimež suffocated during the fire in abandoned brickwork in winter 1862. The community re-accepted some of the brigand penitents after serving their sentence; at least the government no longer prosecuted them.

Brigands' lifestyle
From the time when the brigand families occurred, the comparison of a brigand and a gypsy lifestyle remained. As late as in 1852, the Carniolan district governor Pauker wrote to the provincial governorship: "The high office knows about the persecution and fiddling with the brigands around the country even before the French occupation. These people have lived like a provincial plague at the expense of provincial municipalities and pressed money and food from them, as well as living in the woods like gypsies. Their favourite shelter was great imperial forests near Kranj. They were the real Carniolan gypsies. From the French occupation on, these gypsies were getting more arrogant due to the fact that many work-haters, deserters and robbers had joined them."

Governor Pauker used the comparison with the gypsies also in the opposite direction and said "that he did not try to push the gypsies back to where they belong and that he specifically asked the Postojna and Špital districts to take care that their gypsies would not come to Upper Carniola due to the fact that there was already so much banditry and the gypsies were considered robbers. Their collection of old clothes was merely a pretext to roam around and steal, because they live like the old brigands, i.e., extort the municipalities like a real provincial plague for food, steal chickens and lambs, potatoes in the fields and then cook all that in a large pot in the woods. It is true that gypsies are equipped with homeland certificates and permits for the collection of clothes, but you should consider them only as drifters who threaten the public safety because they do not behave like other people; their home is most often forests where they live as brigands, cook, sleep, etc. They are the real plague who here and there blind people by prophesying, extort food from them, steal potatoes, chickens, sheep, etc. The district is already enough at risk by the Ziherl band (i.e., by Dimež) and
these gypsies who live like brigands should not be tolerated due to the fact that their permits to collect clothes serve only as a permit for them to wander around like brigands."

Notorious characteristics of brigands
A brigand could therefore be anyone and everyone was able to be connected to them: "The brigands had secret confidants in the markets and villages among beggars, business owners, farmers and innkeepers, greedy for money, and even among the catchpoles and official minions. They were inquiring around what the people spoke of the brigands, where potential danger was and where they could take something from. Those who had not known about this were wondering fearfully of such omniscience and were convinced that the brigands were magicians who knew how to make themselves invisible" (Josip Mal, History of the Slovenian Nation, 1993).

Regarding the invisibility, it should be noted first that the brigands were moving around in a more or less familiar home environment, where they had a lot of confidants. This was emphasised by their contemporary and persecutor, the Carniolan district governor Pauker, who in 1852 reported to the provincial governorship the following: "The greatest obstacle to catching the brigands represents their skill that they can obtain spies and helpers everywhere and these are compelled into this partly by distress and poverty."

It is this "invisibility" that gave the brigands their name. Where does the name brigand come from? The etymological dictionary disappoints here, because it says that "the word is etymologically not satisfactorily explained. Perhaps originally urokavnjač, 'the one that has the spellbound power', derived from the Slovenian word spell, to cast a spell on. If the presumption is correct, the word reflects the folk belief according to which the brigands had a special power that made them invisible during crimes."
Namely, the brigands were supposed to be chopping off children's hands and use them as lighting in the dark. The belief in the magic power of the blood and body parts of an unborn child is ancient. A legend of a brigand who ripped open a pregnant woman's stomach is known. With regard to children's hands and ripped up pregnant women, the basis of the folk imagination can be found in the fact that due to the brigands' lifestyle (concubinage), they had killed many children; these were namely not desired.
In addition to this alleged invisibility, the brigands' mystery was enriched by their special language, one of the gibberish that was often used by the marginal social groups. The brigands' language was a mixture of various languages and dialects, containing the majority of deformed German words, many reminded of Romance words. The brigands used to call the language "plintovska špraha" (German, blind).

Excerpt of brigands' language with translation

             
Further brigands' specialty that was obvious and the describers of the brigands usually never leave out was that they were nicely dressed. As we have seen, this has already been mentioned in the article in the Illyrisches Blatt newspaper. In 1875, Alfonz Pavlina confirmed in the Slovenian Nation newspaper "that the inhabitants of 'Udin boršt', at home mostly around Kranj, were dressed in much nicer clothes than peasant lads and liked to associate with the villagers".
This characteristic of theirs can easily be explained if we remember that the brigands were breaking into farmhouses and chests where people kept their valuables – all the money they had, perhaps some jewellery and best clothes (very often, umbrellas or parasols were found among the brigands' acquisitions). Usually, they sold the clothes, after they had dressed themselves, of course. A female brigand, captured in 1821, for example, was dressed in cambric (cotton fabric in plain weave), in red-and-yellow coloured shirt with a waistcoat, blue-and-white apron, black-and-red-square scarf with green ends, a fine short top shirt and fine muslin headscarf – quite colourful.
Moreover, the brigands' wedding should be mentioned. The brigands had their casual priests or the Pope who was marrying them and giving apparent legitimacy to their unions and, of course, giving rise to unbridled revelry.

The following stanza with which the Great Groga was performing marriage ceremonies, is famous:
In nomine patre,
take her for a while,
and if you get a nicer one,
leave this one behind!

Brigands' glory
The most romantic myth about the brigands says that they took only from the rich and even helped the poor in distress. With this, the ancient desire to punish the unconscionable rich and help the poor is expressed. In England, they had Robin Hood, and we had the brigand. And this positive mythic tradition continues to shine a bright light on the brigands.

The more time passed after the time of the brigands, the more Robin-Hood-like virtues were attributed to them. Alfons Pavlin had praised the brigands already in 1875 in the Slovenian Nation newspaper. Among other things, he wrote "that they had usually not harmed the farmers, but they had been robbing the rich and the churches".
Moreover, the authors of various records about the brigands, with the desire to make their time as positive as possible, ascribed them the character of a kind of a black army that has broken free of the control of authority and began robbing all around. Namely, they were supposed to represent some kind of guerrillas attacking the French at the time of the French occupation. However, we should look at all these different interpretations with reservation; some facts correspond to reality, but the reason was explained entirely arbitrary and made the information even more confusing.
Even for the argument that a large proportion of thefts and robberies of the pre-modern was to be attributed to social rebellion and understood as (pre)revolutionary movements, there is no proof to be found in literature. Today's researches show that poverty and marginality were of high importance. The statements of criminals in the court records were in fact completely free of socio-political concept.
Furthermore, we can discover that the myth about their operation was spread also by the brigands themselves. The more mysterious their operation was, the more power they had. Various festivities of the "retired" brigands were recorded and preserved. The people listened to their adventures intensely and spread the stories even more tensely. And after these stories were written, they became immortal.
And so we come to literary brigands who are the fruit of romantic writings of the 19th century, having very little in common with the real brigands.
Literary processing of the theme of a brigand has helped considerably to its idealisation. Of course, this was not our specialty; the Germans even have a special branch of literature, called "Räuberromantik", to which a large number of so-called banditry novels (Räuberromane) and, for example, Schiller's drama The Robbers (Die Rauber, 1781) belong.

By transcribing from text to text, the brigands' virtues have found their way also into – so to speak – serious history books. In the History of the Slovenian People, Cankarjeva založba, of 1979 we can find the following record: "The brigands were attacking the aristocracy, as well as rich farmers, while they liked to help poor farmers, cottagers and the like."

Thus, this is the today's "memory" of the brigands. While in the active time of the brigands, the records of their operation were not even a little romantic. In the papers (News) and official letters, the authorities (district governorship, municipality, police and gendarmerie) talked about this issue like it was the plague. However, it seems that later literary writers and artists collected from the people, who most directly suffered from the attacks of the brigands, only the positive, exciting, heroic and authority-defying characteristics about them. And it was precisely among the people that terrible, but tempting stories of the brigands who were robbing the rich and left the poor alone were preserved.